A sanitary tampon is known including a small piece-shaped cotton pad piece to which a string-like cord is sewn (for example, see Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2001-8964). In the production of such a sanitary tampon, for example, a continuous string-like cord before being cut is supplied along surfaces of cotton pad pieces sequentially placed at predetermined intervals, and then sewing with a sewing machine is performed along the cord. In such a production method, sanitary tampons as intermediate workpieces in the form of a plurality of cotton pad pieces connected via the continuous string-like cord are first obtained. Then, the cord is cut and each cotton pad piece is rolled and housed in an applicator, thereby obtaining a sanitary tampon as a final product.
However, the conventional production method of a sanitary tampon has the following problem. Specifically, the production efficiency of sanitary tampons depends on the performance of the sewing machine for sewing the cord, and in particular, the sewing speed represented by the sewing length achieved per unit time, which makes it difficult to increase production efficiency beyond the performance of the sewing machine.
The present invention is achieved in view of the problem in the conventional method, inter alia, and relates to an efficient production method for producing a sanitary tampon, and a production device for implementing the production method.